Since the day after the 2010 elections, I have been bombarded with mailings and phone calls from the Republican National Committee seeking my support in the campaign to defeat President Obama in 2012.

I am 100% committed to that goal.

I am also 85% dissatisfied with the way that the process has been conducted.  And it seems to get worse with each election cycle.

My most significant issue is the unending cacophony of experts, news analysts and bloggers insisting that the “whole thing is over after South Carolina” or some variant thereof that seeks to wrap up the whole process before 47 other states have had a chance to weigh in on the matter.  If we truly are going to end the process after three (relatively tiny) states have had some sort of caucus/election, why do we need to be bombarded with endless requests for money? Why, as a resident of Georgia, should I even bother to participate in the county conventions or primary if a bunch of committees in states I don’t live in are going to decide the issue?

My second issue with this process is the large number of debates conducted (largely on Saturdays when people have actual lives) and moderated by professionals who have only one real aim — self promotion and more ‘resume bullets’ — yes, John King and George Stephanopoulos, I’m looking at you — rather than facilitating a meaningful and intelligent discussion of the issues.

I believe that we need a process that helps us understand the traits that are important in the candidates — their grasp of the facts, their guiding governmental principles, and a reasonable test of the way they think under pressure.  But I think the process we have now does a really poor job in answering these needs.  The ‘twitter debate’ that was conducted was an interesting twist as the candidates all had to answer simultaneously without knowledge of the other’s  thoughts.  Maybe we should expand that a bit beyond 140 characters and look for ways to have the candidates, in their own words and in writing, state their positions without the circus of the debates.  The stand up routines are useful, but only to a point, so we should encourage say 3-5 of those, done at a time when people’s attention will be attuned to actually listening to them.

I also believe that we need to return to some sort of means to deeply understand the issues and develop solutions. We almost need an ‘issues convention’ in the year before the primaries so that we can vet the candidates on that basis instead of what we do now — who has the best poll numbers? who has the best fundraising report? These are terrible surrogates for  a candidate’s ability to govern once elected. Instead of forcing all the candidates to mount their own platforms and ideas, we should first decide as a national political party what the issues are and form a working consensus on the solution — and then pick the candidate that does the best job defending the solution.  The voters would then have the confidence that the plan would actually be accomplished, and they would be far more committed to working toward the election of the candidate.  As it stands now, we have disconnects with ideas and candidates — there appeared to be some strong support for “9-9-9″ for example, but those folks see little chance of that being adopted with any of the current candidates. Don’t be surprised when their enthusiasm wanes as a result.

Lastly, I think ‘wrapping it up early’ might be great for the support troops and the ‘campaign professionals’ but it is a lousy idea for winning the election.  I’m not a sports expert, but it seems to me that the teams that wrap up their division races and coast into the playoffs always get surprised.  The election cycle should be a campaign of short, but intense action — so the current 4 year process should be scrapped, because it leads to “the professionals” trying to “manage” it, rather than groups of leaders at all levels “waging” the campaign.

“Managers” want the primaries to end early — but I think that takes a lot of the “edge” off as the other states, who don’t matter, go through the motions of choosing their delegates, much like baseball teams playing the last 4-5 games prior to the playoffs.  There is a danger of disaffection, boredom, ‘injury’ and turning their attention elsewhere — none of which are good things.

“Leaders” on the other hand, see the political process needing continuous, sharp and meaningful competition until the final ‘battle’ is won.  Why do you think politics is so infused with military terminology — it is because it truly is a contest (without weapons) that is every bit as important as a military victory.  Clausewitz said “War is politics by other means.”  It could and should be understood to be true in the reverse — and in this important election, many (like me) believe that this election truly is a fight for the future of America.  If this is a fight, then we don’t want to be the Army of the Potomac, patiently waiting for our opponent to move — we want to use (all) the primaries to harden the candidates and the troops and then use the summer and the Conventions to relentlessly pursue the course of victory in November.

We should insist on a process that begins in the late winter/early spring of the election year, thoroughly tests the candidates into the summer, flows into a short respite around the Convention (think of it as the “All Star” Break) and then pushes into the final 6o or so days to the election.

This would truly make it a national contest, worthy of supporting a national political party.

In today’s New York Times, their editorial staff is urging the President to raise taxes.  No surprise, there, even if they are slightly Constitutionally challenged — it is the House of Representatives that gives birth to taxes, not the President.

They start off their assertion with a real bang:

A week later and we are still amazed at how the Republicans in Congress pulled it off. They held the economy hostage, won some cheap political points, and all of us will spend the next decade paying the ransom as government programs — $900 billion over 10 years in the first round — are slashed and the recovery is put at risk.

I observe the new tone of civility just leaping off the page with that start — hostage taking, slashing and ‘recovery at risk.’  The reality, of course, is the opposite — we will be spending the next several decades paying off the ransom of foolish and out of control spending that has been going on, nearly unabated, since the 70s.

The good folks at the Times are hoping that the President will ‘finally fight’ to increase taxes, lamenting that

Each year, the government provides $1 trillion in tax breaks. Some of the largest breaks — for itemized deductions and retirement savings — should be retained because they subsidize important goals, like home ownership and old-age security. Right now, wealthier taxpayers get the greatest benefit.

Here again, the editorial board shows their understanding to be lacking — but their agenda is clear.  The government is not providing $1T in tax breaks, as if they are mailing checks to somebody. What the government is doing is allowing people to keep the money they already have.  Why is this such a hard concept to grasp? But the second part of the quote is the ‘money quote’ because the NYT is in favor of government subsidies of  things it considers ‘important goals’ and it sees the tax code as something to be adjusted to meet social engineering, rather than revenue collection.

The NYT is correct in its assertion that the gap between spending and income must be closed — but they run off the rails by asserting that tax rates must be raised (clearly on ‘the rich’) to close the gap.  They also view the spending cuts as an anathema to society.

However, the Heritage Foundation has clearly shown that the issue is that we’re spending about 40% more than the historic norm for taxes collected, and that this mismatch between revenue and spending has been a feature of our federal budget for quite some time — with one brief respite when the Republican led Congress led to a brief surplus before the “dot-com” bubble burst the economy followed by 9/11.

Not to be deterred, the NYT thinks that allowing the Bush/Obama tax breaks to elapse (raising the tax rates on all incomes), adding a value added tax and a carbon tax to the mix will be what’s needed to solve the debt crisis.

Congress should consider raising revenues in other ways, like a value-added tax, or carbon taxes. That way all of the needed revenue for deficit reduction, and for what government provides, does not need to be squeezed from the income tax. A value-added tax is conducive to saving, and a carbon tax helps protect the environment.

Amazingly, they seem to actually believe this!  Adding cost on top of cost to goods produced, the VAT and the Carbon Tax would make our goods completely non-competitive in the global economy and would significantly decrease demand for goods.  And once again, their agenda is clear — we must not stand in the way of the government providing for its citizens.  There is no discussion about what the proper role of government is, or what limits should be placed on ‘what government provides’ — the only topic worthy of discussion is how to increase revenue so that spending over one quarter of the nation’s GDP can continue.

The NYT, trying to go for the “debated is over, the topic is settled” stance, asserts:

The public is open to new taxes, and the economic facts are clear. Until tax increases are considered in equal measure to spending cuts, there will be no budget fix.

However, that may really not be the case.  While polls by CBS and Gallup showed support for a mixture of tax increases and spending cuts, a poll by Washington Wispers found support for increasing taxes was pretty low…the most anyone seemed to be willing to additionally add to their own tax bill was 1%.  While some ‘may be open to new taxes,’ the issue invariably becomes how to tax somebody else.  We are so entrenched in using the tax code to punish success and get someone else to bear the burdens, we all are ‘open’ to making somebody else pay.  But the truth is, the rich contribute an enormous amount of the total revenue already, and nearly half the country contributes nothing.

It’s clear that the liberals aren’t through with this fight…they want to continue the class warfare rhetoric and the bombastic language.  They will insist on compromise, but as Senator Marco Rubio so aptly put it from the floor of the Senate (h/t YouTube):

I would love nothing more than compromise. But I would say to you that compromise that’s not a solution is a waste of time.  If my house was on fire, I can’t compromise about which part of the house I’m going to save. You save the whole house or it will all burn down.  We either save this country or we do not.  And to save it, we must seek solutions.

We need to save the whole country, Red States and Blue States, rich or poor.  We are either going to solve this as a nation, or we will fail.  The policies of tax and spend and Keynesian management of the economy have failed.  It’s time to return to common sense, Constitutional principles and clear, consistent and enduring laws.  Changing the tax code every year, creating and solving each ‘crisis’ with more and more governmental control and destroying individual initiative are eroding the greatness of our nation.  It’s time to restore the things that made us great, while there is still time.

We are all rightly focused on the efforts of Speaker Boehner and the Republicans to deal with the debt ceiling and deficit.  We are all caught up in the bargaining back and forth and whether one side or the other is losing the fight over gaining control over spending at the federal level.  Sometimes, though, we lose focus on the real issue — the federal government is too large, too ineffective and has burst well beyond its Constitutional limits into areas of our lives it was never intended to occupy.

From the pages of the Wall Street Journal this weekend, there are two striking examples of the Leviathan in action.

The first story that caught my eye described the mushrooming number of federal laws, and resulting convictions.  There has been a dramatic increase in the number of convictions of federal crimes over the past several decades — because the federal statutes often have lower burdens of proof that crime was committed.  The article points out

The U.S. Constitution mentions three federal crimes by citizens: treason, piracy and counterfeiting. By the turn of the 20th century, the number of criminal statutes numbered in the dozens. Today, there are an estimated 4,500 crimes in federal statutes, according to a 2008 study by retired Louisiana State University law professor John Baker.

but for me, the real kicker in the article was this:

There are also thousands of regulations that carry criminal penalties. Some laws are so complex, scholars debate whether they represent one offense, or scores of offenses.

Counting them is impossible. The Justice Department spent two years trying in the 1980s, but produced only an estimate: 3,000 federal criminal offenses.

–snip–

A Justice spokeswoman said there was no quantifiable number. Criminal statutes are sprinkled throughout some 27,000 pages of the federal code.

In essence, our government has created a situation that is so out of control, it can’t even count the number of laws that we may be subject to a the federal level.  And worse yet, it doesn’t seem terribly worried about it.

How did we, who allow our government to rule through our consent, ever allow this to happen??

The second WSJ story that caught my eye was about the impact of home foreclosures.   The article talks about the crisis and the fact that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac now currently have title to a huge number of homes:

These firms and U.S. banks currently own more than 500,000 foreclosed homes, and there’s another 2 million loans in some stage of foreclosure. The high share of distressed sales in many struggling markets is contributing to continued declines in home prices.

The article goes on to describe the thinking in Washington, from Mr. Bernake at the Federal Reserve and others as to what the resolution to the issue could be.  Not surprisingly, one proposal is to turn Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae in to landlords, allowing them to rent out the foreclosed properties.  This is really troubling on a lot of levels, but mostly because of Einstein’s famous observation:

We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.

But in Washington, it seems, they believe that turning the federal government into the largest landlord in the country is a good thing.

If the federal government cannot keep track of the number of criminal laws they have written, what’s the likelihood that they will be able to keep track of a million or so houses?  Why should we trust them to do so?

The article discusses the need for the government to intervene, in spite of the facts in the article that show that the private sector, through the traditional means of foreclosures and sheriff’s sales, is in fact absorbing the foreclosed properties, in many cases improving them, and then renting them to qualified families.  In short, the system is working, although maybe a bit slower than some would like.  There doesn’t seem to be a compelling reason for the government to be involved at all, except for some bureaucratic hand wringing that the market isn’t moving fast enough.

The obvious answer — empowering the private sector to move faster through incentives — isn’t even mentioned in the article.

So, while we worry about the drama in Washington over the budget, we should not take our eye off the real target — the size and scope of the federal government.  As candidate Ronald Reagan said “…government is the problem.”

Make Our Day!

I look forward to your explanation as to why the federal government should spend the country into oblivion, when many of the States are required to balance their budgets each and every year….and in fact, some are actually running small surpluses!

I look forward to your explanation as to why the federal government should be entitled to at least one out of every four dollars of our Gross Domestic Product…levels of spending not seen since World War II.  What does the federal government need with that amount of money??  Can you really believe that Washington is better able to decide what money should be spent on what, given the abysmal record thus far in education, welfare and social services?

I look forward to your defense of continuing the massive waste of taxpayer funds on treadmills for shrimp, educating Chinese prostitutes, bridges to nowhere and high speed rail projects that will require continued subsidies while nearly one in five recent college graduates are struggling to find jobs.

I look forward to your defense of adding additional tax burdens on the wealthy, the top 1% of earners who already pay 40% of the total revenue collected by the IRS in personal income taxes.

I look forward to your defense of the spending in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (“The Stimulus”) that has failed to lift the economy as you predicted.  I look forward to your proof that you can, in fact, spend your way out of a recession or depression, despite the overwhelming historical evidence to the contrary.

I look forward to your substantiation that hiring tens of thousands more IRS auditors, EPA inspectors and other bureaucrats can improve our quality of life, increase our freedom and enhance our pursuit of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

The Wall Street Journal quotes you as saying

“There will be huge differences between now and November 2012 between the parties. And whoever the Republican nominee is we’re going to have a big, serious debate about what we believe is the right way to guide America forward… I’m confident that I will win that debate.”

There’s only one problem with that plan, Mr. President.  By next November, we will likely have added another $2T in debt to the already unsustainable total that you’ve rung up in the last two and a half years.  The time for that debate is now — we cannot afford to wait 16 more months.

We need to make the hard choices now, and the budgets and other ideas submitted by the Republicans that you have dismissed so easily are the grounds for that debate.

The time for action, not debate, is now.  The Republicans are offering a concrete, sensible plan — not vague generalities and accounting gimmicks that treat additional spending as ‘cuts.’  The Republicans in the House have come up with ideas and strong principles to eliminate unnecessary spending and reduce the size of government to affordable levels.

Put your plan on the table, and let’s have the debate. Now, not later. Let the American people see the differences you allude to, and let them contact their Representatives and Senators to voice their opinion.

Then have a clear, no gimmicks vote in both Houses and get on with governing for the people.  If you choose to veto the bill after all of that, be ready to defend your position.  We’ll be waiting to see how it develops.

The world looks to America in times like this. Governments and business leaders want a basic framework sothey can make decisions. What they get from the Obama White House, too often, is silence.

This crystal clear and concise truth is in today’s column in the Washington Post by David Ignatius.  I must confess that I do not read the Washington Post or rely on it to form my perspective on events.  I have heard of David Ignatius and occasionally read a column or two, before today’s column but he hasn’t struck me as a ‘go to guy’ in the same way that I regard Thomas Sowell or  Victor Davis Hanson.

But I have to admit that Ignatius’s quote above is right on the money.  The frustrating part is that this clarity is surrounded by a muddled mass of inconsistency as the author tries to make the point that the President ‘has the right instincts’ but somehow his inability to communicate keeps him from being able to ‘close the deal.’  To Ignatius,  for part of his column, it isn’t the message, but the messenger – a huge turnabout from the past several years of gushing praise by others about the President’s impressive communication skills.

Then Ignatius veers back toward clarity with some other observations, before heading straight for the ditch (to use one of the President’s favorite analogies):

The debt-limit crisis is a scary example of this tendency to follow, rather than lead. Through 2010, the Obama White House kept its distance from deficit-reduction proposals, and, when it finally entered the fray, it was in the person of Vice President Biden. One official told me bluntly last year that floating proposals too early was a loser, politically.

So Obama waited. His policy ideas, now that they’re public, look pretty solid. But rather than uniting the country behind a vision for reforming entitlements and taxes, he looks like a man being dragged into church by a firebrand preacher named Eric Cantor. The Republicans look bad, but so does Obama.

Once again, he correctly points to the President’s ‘distance from deficit reduction talks’ — but completely misses the point that the $Trillion deficits that the President has deployed are what hastened the need for talks in the first place.  This isn’t a problem with communication — this is a problem with Mr. Ignatius’s failure to see the truth before his very own eyes, and failure to hear the President’s own words about income redistribution and his belief that health care reform would reduce future deficits.

I strongly believe that Mr. Ignatius would fail if he attempted to explain what the President’s “policy ideas, now that they’re public” really are….and if he did, I doubt that they would “look pretty solid.”  I’ve heard several radio pundits make the compelling case that the President, by his position, is saying that high speed rail and student loans are more important than social security payments and money for disabled veterans — that is not solid, that’s silly.

But he’s not done.  Mr. Ignatius then writes this about the President’s foreign policy:

The same is true for the Arab Spring. Obama has had it about right, in policy terms. U.S. strategy is a sensible mix of pragmatism and principle. America supports the movements for democratic change in the autocratic republics, such as Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and Syria. It respects the more conservative traditions of the pro-Western monarchies and sheikdoms, such as Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Kuwait. This distinction isn’t complicated, it just needs to be explained.

So the policy that has led to the insertion of the Muslim Brotherhood into what started out as an uprising for democracy is “a sensible mix of pragmatism and principle.”  Exactly what is the principle?  Why can’t we all express the principle in 25 words or less if is indeed sensible?  And what are we to make of the involvement in Libya, which has gone on in confused fashion for “months, not weeks,” to reverse the President’s public promise?  What are we to make of the hundreds being gunned down in the streets of Syria as all of this transpires?  ”This isn’t complicated, it just needs to be explained.”  So why hasn’t it been explained?  This isn’t a failure of communications — this is a failure of leadership.

But in the end, you can’t really blame Mr. Ignatius.  Look at the bewildering confusion and lack of leadership he has as source material.  The administration hasn’t provided a lot of clarity and coherence to work with.

The continuing saga of House and Senate leaders trudging up to the White House to negotiate with the President has done nothing to make progress on the real issue:  meaningful budget reductions to reduce the annual deficits and get the out of control growth of the federal government back within striking distance of being controlled.

So the answer is pretty simple.  End the Three Party talks.  There can be no useful result of a 3 way contest:  the President seeking to aquire more power and set up a win in the 2012 campaign–without regard to the impact on other Democrats; the Senate trying to appease the liberal base of its Majority; The House trying to live up to its instructions from the electorate in the last election.  There is no common ground in the 3 positions — so it’s useless to try.

The House has passed a budget which the Senate, according to its Constitutional role, has not acted upon.  There could be meaningful and real negotiations between House and Senate leaders, as there have been in similar situations in our history, if they were scheduled by Senator Reid, the Senate Majority Leader.  The fact that he, and his fellow Democrats, have not taken any action, is the root cause of this supposed crisis.

It’s that simple.

I agree with Mark Levin and others.  The House should act and pass a debt ceiling bill that authorizes a small increase in the debt limit and contains ACTUAL cuts to the remainder of this year’s outlays and to the FY 12 Budget that significantly reduce the deficit for next year.  No gimmicks, no accounting games. Real cuts.  Then send the Bill to the Senate, where Senator McConnell and the other Republicans should urge action.  If there is no action on this bill, then it is the Democrats, not the Republicans who bear the burden.

To motivate action, the Republicans should also indicate that for every day of delay in this regard, they will use the Senate rules to delay all other Senate business on a 1 day for 1 week basis — no confirmation hearings, no treaty hearings, nothing — until the issue of the debt is settled.

With other business grinding to a halt, the House then seems to have the ability to craft and pass two more bills — to cap spending during this Congress to no more than 18% of GDP, and another to amend the Constitution with a Balanced Budget Amendment.

It’s been over 900 days since the Senate passed a budget.  It’s time to focus on them as the issue.

It’s also time to let the President out of the process, since there isn’t any apparent value in his holding these negotiations.

From Politico: The President said:

“With a recovery that’s still fragile and isn’t producing all the jobs we need, the last thing we can afford is the usual partisan game-playing in Washington.

“I know we can do this. We can meet our fiscal challenge. That’s what the American people sent us here to do. They didn’t send us here to kick our problems down the road. That’s exactly what they don’t like about Washington. They sent us here to work together. They sent us here to get things done.”

Mr. President, we didn’t send members of the Senate to Washington to dither over a budget for over 800 days.  We sent new members to Congress to pass a budget and work out any remaining issues with the Senate via the normal process of votes and conference committee deliberations, mostly in the open, so that the American people would know what was going on.

We also did not send our Representatives and Senators to Washington to play an annual edition of “Let’s Make a Deal” where the tax code and the budget are thrown together with advantages for one group over another, or penalties for one reason or another.

We did send you all to Washington to represent us and carry out the governance of our country at the federal level.  We sent our elected officials to Washington after the November elections with a very clear message from the majority of us:

• Stop the out of control spending that is burdening our country for decades ahead.
• Stop the insane regulation of health care known as Obamacare, with its myriad rules and penatiles that seem to find new crises to “fix” with every passing day.  If this was the best legislation that you could come up with, it needs to be repealed now before it causes even greater harm.  To use the President’s favorite analogy, if this were an automobile, it would have been recalled off the market months ago.
• Develop a rational, simple and fair tax system that is not a haven for social engineering, business subsidies and special interest pandering.

So far, the only elected officials that have followed the instructions of the American people are the Congressional Republicans.  They worked on and passed a budget in plenty of time to be considered and debated in the Senate — but thus far, the Senate has failed to act.

So we find ourselves watching the drama surrounding the debt ceiling.  Once again, the House Republicans are accomplishing the interests of the American people by holding the line on future debt explosions, while House and Senate Democrats are deploying lies and half truths about what the impact of the debt vote is.

Yes, Mr. President, the elected officials in Washington can work together to get things done very simply:  listen to the overwhelming majority of the country that wants us to head back to fiscal sanity, smaller government and less government regulation. Produce the necessary bills that accomplish that, and the need for compromise would seem to disappear.

There should be no need to “compromise” on delivering the goods to the American people.  This should be easy.  It only gets hard when those that insist that some of their desires (more spending for any number of social justice causes, for example) must be the price for their vote.

We did not send our elected officials to bargain and bully in order to get what they think will give them political support for the next election.  We sent them there to do the right thing.

The nation’s future is hanging in a precarious state. Public servants should be serving the public and making the right decisions — less spending, pro growth and smaller government.

One Last Thought: “The notion that the recovery is not producing the number of jobs we need” is a remark that says more than it intended….once again, the President seems to suggest that the primary purpose of jobs is to produce sufficient tax revenue for the health of the government.  We are not servants of the state — We, The People, consent to be governed by the system outlined in the Constitution, “…secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity” – not “provide revenue to the Treasury.”  Perhaps the recovery is working backwards because the administration is thinking backwards on this point.

The special election to fill the seat in the 26th District in New York this week produced a victory for the Democrat candidate, Ms. Kathy Hochul, in large part because of the presence of a third candidate, Jack Davis, who presented himself as a “Tea Party” candidate under false pretenses. The lesson that presents for the 2012 election is left for another time — right now, I feel the need to discuss what Representative Hochul thinks is the way forward during the remaining 18 months of this Congress.

Speaking with Rachel Maddow on CNBC, the new representative said a lot of things — but what grabbed my attention was this part:

Republicans have to meet us halfway.  There‘s just no way around it.  I think what they should take some comfort in is that people in this describing are not afraid to say the wealthiest in this country when times are tough should pay their fair share and go back to taxes the way they were back under the Clinton era when last I checked things were pretty prosperous here.

The Democrats seem to indicate that the way forward to responsible governance is to “meet us halfway” and that there is no alternative.  She also goes straight to the ‘class warfare’ tactic of insisting that the wealthiest in this country should pay “their fair share” — the way they were back under the Clinton era, when things ‘were pretty prosperous.’   Let’s take each of these points — but in reverse order.

The 90s were indeed fairly prosperous times, except when anyone wants to discuss the “Internet Bubble” that burst in 1999, to be replaced by the “Housing Bubble” during the 00′s.  The Federal budget was about 22% of our GDP in 1990 and fell to about 18% of GDP in 2000, while revenue went up from 18% of GDP to about 20% of GDP in 2000. The annual budget deficit, while at the time seemingly large at around $300B in the first half of the decade, actually was turned into a surplus by a Republican led Congress in FY 94-2000 (Thanks, Newt, for getting that started…). Spending during the 90s was around $2Trillion per year — about half what is being spent today — this is the dominant reason that ‘things were prosperous’ — more money was in private hands than today.  So if Representative Kochul is suggesting that we go back to spending about 18% of our GDP (instead of the current 25%), I would have to agree with her on that point.

The rich currently pay taxes at the top rate of 35% and the new representative seems to indicate that everything would be better if they went to the old top rate of 39.6%.  The top 1% (the “rich”) accounted for 38% of the total revenue collected in 2010, with the top tax rate at 35%.  Increasing the top rate to 39% will not, using anybody’s calculator, result in closing the $1.6Trillion dollar deficit this year.  At best. increasing the tax rates to levels in the Clinton administration might raise another $50-80Billion — far short of the need.  In fact, estimates suggest that the top tax rate would have to be raised to 88% for ‘the rich’ and 63% for the middle classs to eliminate the deficit.  I don’t think there is anyone, with the exception of Michael Moore and Van Jones, that thinks that 88% of their income represents a ‘fair share’ for the rich.  This is just plainly ridiculous — I’d like to say “un-American” as well, but unfortunately, there were periods in our history when such draconian tax rates were accepted (see the 1930s and 1940s, another era of ‘progressive’ thought).

So let’s now consider Representative Kochul’s imperative that Republicans have to meet the Democrats ‘half way.’  How did this ever become a reasonable idea and expression for compromise?  If a plan to build a highway ends up costing $10B, how is it possible to haggle over this cost and say that Congress should only fund $7.5B?  It can’t be completed, so spending anything less than the correct amount is simply waste — sort of like the high speed rail line in California.  The project is set to spend billions of dollars, only to connect two small farming communities in the central valley of California — among studies and concerns that the eventually completed system (if it ever is) will require billions in subsidies to keep it operating.

SImilarly, if the bill to provide something like medical care to the elderly is $200B, how does one ‘meet halfway’ on that?  If Congress agrees to fund $150B as a result of a “meet halfway” between the Democrats wanting to spend $200B and the Republicans wanting to spend $100B — how does that serve the nation?  Who then decides which one out of four elderly people doesn’t get served?

I’m sorry — meeting “half way” is a receipe for total, unmitigated disaster.  This is not what the American people need or deserve.  The national governance cannot be reduced to an auction where things are decided by ‘splitting the difference.’  This is just lunacy.

The American people spoke through the ballot in 2010, and they decided that reckless, out of control spending and over reaching government was not what they wanted.  Deciding to be only ‘half reckless’ and ‘half out of control’ by meeting the Democrats “half way” is just plainly stupid.  It leads our nation to the same point of bankruptcy and ruin — but at a more comfortable speed of collision, I guess.

I hope that Representative Kochul learns that lesson quickly — and if she doesn’t, I hope that she enjoys a very short career in Congress.

“Four billion dollars of your money are going to these companies at a time when they’re making record profits and you’re paying near record prices at the pump,” the president said at a Nevada town hall. “It has to stop.”  President Obama, April 21, 2011

The President continues to demonstrate his ability to demonize those with whom he disagrees, especially those involved in capitalism and private enterprise.   Feeling the heat from citizens about the rising price of gas at the pump, the President tries to focus us towards an enemy — and “big oil” fits the bill because of the enormous amounts of money involved in discovering, developing, transporting and refining fuel so that we can have the freedom to purchase it and use it to our benefit.

We all can identify with “4 Billion Dollars” as being a great deal of money.  But what the President isn’t being honest about is that 4 Billion Dollars isn’t very much when it comes to this line of human endeavor.  The oil rigs that drill for the oil off the coast can easily cost $1 Billion just to build — so in those terms, we’ve just gotten enough money together to build 4 more drilling units.  At one time, there were 19 or 20 such rigs, just in the Gulf of Mexico.  This doesn’t sound so outrageous, given costs like this.  How about refineries — like the ones we have not built in this country in about 30 years — want to take a stab at how much just one of those might cost?

The President is also trying to deflect our attention from his recent deal with Brazil in which he provided $3 Billion of our tax dollars to Brazil so that they could do more offshore drilling for themselves.  So why is it OK for the US government to toss $3B to the folks in Brazil, but it’s bad for all US oil companies combined to have $4 Billion?  This is a pretty weak thread to pull, if you ask me.

Oil companies need to make a profit so that they can continue to capitalize additional exploration, drilling and production and serve their customers.  Where else does the President expect the money to come from? How can he not understand the need for large amounts of capital in this sector of our economy?

If the President is really spun up about $4 Billion as something that “should be stopped,”  I suggest that he pay more attention to the conduct of the federal government, which is the actual responsibility given to him by the voters in November 2008.  The federal government is spending nearly $3.7 Trillion dollars this year (and probably nearly that next year), which works out to about $10B per day.  Federal revenues (taxes and fees collected) are about $2.1 Trillion, leaving about $1.6 Trillion in debt for this year….or a little more than $4B per day. This isn’t 4B per month or year — it’s $4B per day, every day this year.

This, Mr. President, is the $4Billion that “has to stop.”  Now. Not in ten years or 12 years. Now.

Much has been said already about President Obama and his favorite rhetorical device in speeches, the Straw Man, or false argument.  His speech on the deficit, hastily pulled together to attack the plan offered by Representative Ryan, has a long line of them.

In his deficit speech on Wednesday, President Obama said:

We don’t have to choose between a future of spiraling debt and one where we forfeit our investment in our people and our country.

Where has anyone asked that we ‘forfeit our investment in our people’ by trying to run the federal government with sound fiscal policy?  He is absolutely right about this particular point — we don’t have to choose a future of spiraling debt.  In fact, continuing to accumulate growing debt will be the fastest way to lose the ‘investment’ we have made in this country.  But neither must we continue to spend the amounts he wants in order to meet the needs of our people.

We’re a nation that built a railroad across a continent and brought light to communities shrouded in darkness.  We sent a generation to college on the GI Bill and we saved millions of seniors from poverty with Social Security and Medicare.  We have led the world in scientific research and technological breakthroughs that have transformed millions of lives.  That’s who we are.  This is the America that I know.

The President’s remarks make it seem that government “investment” was the source of our greatness in the past and is the answer to our future, and that any attempts to lower government spending as Representative Ryan proposes is not ‘courageous’ or ‘serious.’  In his examples above, however, the President completely glosses over the point the railroads were built largely with private capital, not government funds; the majority of electrical power distribution was also done with private investment.  In addition, the largest share of research and development funds in this country up until the explosive growth of federal spending in the 1970s and beyond, was also done with private funds.  An private capital, in the form of ownership in companies with shareholders who benefitted from the fruits of the enterprises like railroads, electrical companies and automobile companies, made this a very prosperous nation.  That is ‘who we are’ — capitalists and entrepreneurs most able to find the next big thing with minimal government involvement.  Think of companies like Apple and Microsoft –they became successful without government “investment” and management.

In fact, one could easily make the argument that our pace of innovation and discovery has slowed as we collectively became more dependent on government funding for “green energy” and other government priorities, rather than pursuing market driven products which serve the public good–but I’ll leave that argument for another day.

When the President made reference in his speech to the notion that Chinese “companies” are making investments in solar engergy and the like, he similarly glosses over the fact that most of these companies are owned by the Chinese government, and that is “who they are.”

In his speech, and in remarks since the speech, the President has frequently referred to the straw man that we face a choice between “giving rich companies tax breaks and paying for medical care” or other support from the government for the truly needy– and he continually presents this as a choice the Republicans are seeking to force on the country.  Again, this is a false choice and not a very accurate one.

When the tax code does not collect a tax, it is not ‘giving’ a company anything — it is allowing the company to keep what it already has.  Allowing the company to keep more of its earnings benefits the country by keeping workers employed and providing income to those who might own shares in the company through mutual funds, retirement plans and other means.

Taxes must first come from the wealth created by an individual or company.  That money does not belong to the government to ‘give’ to anyone. Presenting these false choices of the Treasury either giving money to rich corporations/individuals or people in need is the worst kind of deceit.

There isn’t a choice between doing things that enable a prosperous economy and helping those in need — this isn’t an either or proposition.  The nation can, in fact, do both until the size and nature of ‘helping those in need’ through the use of taxes collected from the nation dwarfs the ability of the underlying economy to support it.  The President’s reference to the Republicans ‘forcing 50 million people to lose their health insurance’ is an example.  Where does anyone see the requirement for the federal government to provide health insurance to one-sixth of our people in our Constitution?  Were we not able to prosper as a nation for the past 234 years without doing this before?  How did this, along with providing free meals to nearly one in five of our school age children suddenly become a national requirement?

Allowing the debate to be framed in these false choices will never allow us to get control of our country’s fiscal health. If the sole purpose of the federal government is to allocate all money in the economy to those areas that are ‘in need’, there will never be a shortage of things to ‘invest in.’  There will always be a group or faction that thinks there is something more worthy and noble to redistribute money for than ‘rich people’ or ‘big corporations.’

But our federal government does not exist for the purpose of re-distributing the nation’s wealth according to the opinions and directives of the Executive Branch.  Our founders put together a very clear and concise framework for limited government in our Constitution.  Following those principles will enable us to control the size and cost of the federal government and allow us as individuals to work together in our communities, churches and other social organizations to care for those truly in need in a voluntary way.

Thomas Jefferson reportedly wrote, “The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield, and government to gain ground.”  President Obama wants to prove that axiom correct by urging us to look to the federal government as the main source of “investment in our people.”  In so doing, he will grow the size of the government’s impact to our economy so that well over one of every four dollars is spent by the government, not individuals–and the majority of those dollars will simply be given to other individuals judged more ‘in need’ than those who first earned the money.

The facts are as simple as they are stark.  We are borrowing 4 out of every 10 dollars the federal government is spending today, and the President’s “plan” to reduce spending only trims about one third of the additional debt estimated in his own budget from two months ago.  In short his plan is inadequate and full of danger for the future of our country.

I’ve been a member of Red State for a while, and I’ve become more active than in the past, at the urging and encouragement of many here.  It’s been rewarding, and I plan to do more.

However, in the past couple of weeks I’ve begun to be overwhelmed with emails from concerned groups and there is such a blizzard of names and like sounding missives that I’ve begun to lose the message from the chaff in my email inbox.

Since Midnight April 1, I’ve gotten 19 emails: 5 from a group called “Patriot Update”, 5 from a group called “Vision 2 America”, 3 from Tea Party Express (although it’s not immediately obvious from their address), 1 from Tea Party Patriots, and others from Town Hall, GOPUSA Eagle and NCPA.

I have every reason to believe these groups are solid conservative, good people.  But 3 of them served as wrappers for the same message from Michele Bachmann and another was seeking donations for another worthy group, Wounded Warriors.  All of them were seeking money for one reason or another, which I understand is a necessary thing.

The situation begs the question:  when does this begin to erode enthusiasm on the part of the recipient? The money request bombardments are going to take a toll eventually.

Also, I’m all for decentralized, grass roots organizations, but it becomes hard to figure out whether I should support Tea Party Express, Tea Party Patriots, The TeaParty.net — we all have a finite amount to give and focus our efforts on — how do I know which one is best?

Nineteen emails, two days — 18 months before the 2012 elections.  I can only imagine what it will be like in 9 months.

I know some will reply “Quit whining –if you don’t like it, unsubscribe..” and I will eventually do that, I’m sure.  I just don’t want to blank out the wrong group out of ignorance.

H/T: Politico for the link…

A recent poll of 1,051 adults shows that the President’s work on the economy is falling short — but that the Republicans aren’t regarded much better.

Americans say President Barak Obama lacks an effective strategy for improving the U.S. economy. They have much less confidence in the Republican vision for success.

By a margin of 51 percent to 40 percent, a Bloomberg National Poll shows Americans say Obama lacks the right formula for long-term growth, a goal he presented in his State of the Union address with the phrase “win the future.”

The Democratic president still does better than Republicans: When asked who has a better vision for the years ahead, 45 percent of poll respondents chose Obama and 33 percent picked the Republicans.

When you read the ‘man in the street’ quotes in the article, the respondents are clearly disappointed that the government isn’t doing more to ‘fix’ the economy.

“He was promising change,” says poll participant Jessica Wolf, 20, who attends Ivy Tech Community College in Lafayette,Indiana. “I haven’t seen any change. There are no jobs out there for us.”

The dismal prospects for the economy and the ineffective efforts thus far to spend us out of recession are making everyone pay attention.  The Independents and Republicans in the survey appear to be solidly unimpressed with the Administration — but apparently the Democrats are still behind the President by a wide majority.

Only a third of independents, a critical group for Obama’s re-election prospects, say he has an effective strategy for improving the nation’s long-term economic vitality. Almost three-quarters of Democrats think he has the right plan, (emphasis mine) compared with just a tenth of Republicans.

With public opinion so dramatically polarized, we should be ready for a very rough stretch during the current federal budget process.  There are obviously two very entrenched positions that are in play:  one wants the President to solve the crisis for them by spending other people’s money; the other wants the chance to fix things for themselves by keeping more of their own.  There is little chance for a compromise ‘middle’ in this fight.

The events of the past few weeks in Wisconsin show that the Democrats and liberals are very motivated and driven by emotion — so we need to find ways to cut through that emotion and get to the facts.  We cannot hope to convince those who want even more spending and even more government ‘action’ to solve their problems by simply spouting facts at them.  We have to acknowledge their fears and demonstrate that we have fears of our own.  Their fears are about the present:  when will I get a Job?  how will I pay my bills?  Our fears are mostly about the future:  How will the debt affect our future?  How will we sustain this level of debt?

We must show those looking for more spending and more government that their fears and our fears are converging–the future is now.  We must convey to those seeking more spending that there is no more capacity to borrow, and that we all have to focus energy and attention on the means to have everyone creating wealth and growing the economy.

With 35% of the people now receiving some sort of government subsistence, we have no time to lose.

We have to move quickly to bring the Independents to our vision for the future.  We’re making headway, from the results of this poll, but there is surely more to do.  We cannot waste time quibbling about the little things:  NPR, NEA and all the little programs need to be cut — but getting support for those program cuts ‘one at a time’ will take years to make a difference.

We need bold action now: defund Obamacare, take on the large entitlements with serious reform, streamline the tax code and eliminate swaths of federal programs that overreach Constitutional boundaries.

The enemies of freedom do not argue; they shout and shoot. Dean William R. Inge

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free. Ronald Reagan, 40th President

Since the general civilization of mankind I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations. James Madison, 4th President

Events over the past couple of weeks have made it clear that freedom is hard to earn and even harder to keep.  Freedom comes at a cost everywhere it exists.

When autocratic rulers seek to exert control over their citizens, the easiest thing to do is go along and not cause any resistance.  Being a subject, allowing those in authority (legitimate or not) to exert that control is easy — all anyone has to do is comply and learn to live under the established conditions.  The natural state of most of the people in the world is to do just that:  learn to accept whatever is dictated and get along as best as can be done.   Throwing off the yokes that control the society and deny it freedom, whether it is in Cairo, Madison or Trenton, takes effort, courage and sacrifice.

The United States arose because its founders had a different idea:  freedom was worth the cost. When the signers of the Declaration of Independence pledged ‘our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor’ they committed to freedom and its power to create a new society.  Their commitment was not an empty gesture or fruitless pursuit — it forms the basis for our nation 235 years later.

Maintaining that freedom has not been easy through our history, and sustaining and preserving it today will be no less challenging.  To do so, we as a society must develop and maintain the strength needed to keep freedom alive.  That strength is really composed of five different types of strength — all must be present, and all are interconnected.  The five strengths must also be balanced, just as it is with athletes: too much leg strength and mass can slow a runner down; not enough upper body strength will defeat a boxer.  The five components of strength are:

• Sovereign:  The nation must be strong enough to defend its interests and territory from invasion. When it is strong enough to have true allies, it must also be strong enough to defend them as well.  For the US, it is also important to have the strength to defend weaker nations from aggression so that our global trade and interactions which provide economic strength can also flourish.  As a sovereign nation, we must also create national strength through effective stewardship of the resources that the nation was blessed to possess, and to use those resources wisely.
• Economic or Financial:  The nation must be strong financially in order to have the means to protect itself and restore itself when faced with natural disasters. Large amounts of debt, by the government, commercial firms or individuals is not a measure of strength, in spite of the contention otherwise by Representative Pete Stark.  Indeed, the nation should have large reserves of private, commercial and to a lesser extent, government wealth to use wisely when unanticipated events occur. “Saving for a rainy day” was folk wisdom for much of our 18th and 19th Century, and it served our nation well. Our economic strength, arising from free market capitalism, must continue to enable everyone to apply their talents and energies to create wealth for themselves in responsible, moral and legal ways.  Without the strength and initiative to pursue our own ideas with our own talents, the overall economy will be distorted and sub-optimized.
• Moral:  Forces of tyranny are relentless and tireless.  It is easy to succumb and relent in the face of the litany of things that should be done in the name of ‘fairness’ and ‘equality.’  It is easy to begin to bend rules, take shortcuts and believe “it doesn’t matter because everyone is doing it.”  But those actions are the road to serfdom and servitude — and it takes moral character to resist and stay the course toward freedom and individual responsibility. The nurturing of moral behavior stems from faith and recognition of the Creator as the source of our natural rights as outlined in the Declaration of Independence.  Without that recognition, all morals end up defined by individuals as whatever seems best to them — leading to a breakdown of moral conduct and replacement with ‘whatever feels good.’  With the breakdown of common moral reference points, society becomes weakened and vulnerable to tyranny.
• Physical:  Being compliant and passive takes no energy or effort.  Relying on yourself and taking responsibility to ensure that the right things get done takes energy, discipline and enthusiasm–things rarely seen in couch potatoes or other forms of laziness.  Those that would deny our freedom have a much easier time when we are out of shape, physically ill or without endurance; it is far easier to seek and accept aid and relief in return for a little freedom when you are not physically strong.
• Intellectual:  Freedom is gained by ensuring that the electorate is informed and aware of the endless ways that tyranny tries to defeat freedom.  An informed electorate is the best means to ensure the continued prosperity of the republic, and that is why widespread education is so important to our nation.  However, when education is itself the victim of a takeover of purveyors of soft tyranny and elite hubris, the nation must find a way to break that hold on its future.

Not Content with $5T added to the National Debt, The President Wants to Spend More

Fox News is reporting that the President’s State of the Union Address will call for more spending on infrastructure and highways to help us become more competitive in the global economy.

And all along, I thought that the ‘shovel ready’ projects of the Stimulus were supposed to be doing that already. Oops! The shovel ready projects weren’t actually all that ready, after all. In fact, Recovery.Gov shows that the Department of Transportation has only spent about $25B of the $44B available for stimulus projects. If infrastructure is so critical, how did it become only 5% of the total stimulus cost?  If they couldn’t come up with ready projects two years ago, what is different now?

The General Accountability Office issued a report in 2008 titled “Surface Transportation: Restructured Federal Approach Needed for More Focused, Performance Based Sustainable Programs”that basically showed the roughly $57B expended by the SAFETEA Act of 2005 was being poorly managed and diffused among a lot of projects that were of little impact.

According to the Heritage Foundation, experts maintain that about $80B per year needs to be spent to upgrade the quality of our highways. For the only year I could find facts from the Federal Highway website, total spending on highways in 2006 was $161B, of which about $78B was spent on construction capital projects and $40B was spent on maintenance, so that seems to be about right. Given the inertia in bureaucracies, I find it hard to believe that funding since 2006 has been dramatically changed, especially lowered, given the massive budgets of the last 3 years.

So why do we need a dramatic call from the President for more spending? And what will he tell us to convince us that the money will be well spent, based on the experience with the Stimulus Bill and the GAO study in 2008?

On Recovery.Gov’s website, one of the projects proudly highlighted is a $23M grant for “urban trails” that don’t seem to have a great deal to do with exports and global competitiveness.  I’m sure there are dozens more projects like this that also have little to do with our exports.

Frankly, in all the news articles and videos I’ve seen over the past 3 years, I can’t think of a single story that featured someone saying “The reason I can’t hire people or export more products is the highways or rail system doesn’t work.”  In fact, it seems to be the exact opposite:  CSX has plenty of ads showing how their rail system efficiently and “greenly” transports millions of tons of freight every year, and our busy seaports like Savannah, GA are already making improvements.  In fact, I also spend a lot of time on interstate highways in Georgia and I can personally attest to the fact that they’re already being expanded and maintained and there is a lot of truck traffic hauling goods today.  The only time that hasn’t been true is when the price of diesel fuel approached $5 a gallon and put many trucking companies out of business.

So, the President needs to make a very strong case that: 1)  The money we’re already spending isn’t enough; 2) The money we’re already spending isn’t being wasted, and future spending won’t be either; and 3) We aren’t adding additional debt to the already insane amount we already have.

I fully support the President’s idea that we should be manufacturing and exporting more goods overseas.  I just don’t think that throwing more money at infrastructure will have a significant impact, just as we’ve seen thus far with the stimulus spending.

What we need first are laws and tax rates that ensure our manufacturing base has access to economic labor, raw materials and energy.  Taking these steps would rescue our economy and help reduce our overwhelming debt.

And What We Need to Do to Support Them

The new session of Congress has just begun, and Speaker Boehner and the Republican Majority are off to a great start.

The shooting in Tucson, the forced ‘lesson’ about the ‘toxic rhetoric’ and call for unity now being trumpeted by the media and the Democrats are attempts to deflect the Republicans and move the agenda back to the left.

If the Republicans are smart, they won’t take the bait — this shiny new lure of style over substance aimed only at the conservatives.

The new Republican majority in Congress has made a great start at dealing with substance over style, and they should continue.  The first thing they should do next week is reject the most recent ‘style’ suggestion: to mix the Democrats and Republicans seating during the State of the Union Address.  This is an attempt to disguise the deep, substantive divisions that do exist regarding the future of the country.  To pretend for the purpose of political theater that these divisions are absent is to attempt to fool the American people and the world — and we’re not buying it.  This seating arrangement also has the intended purpose of showing submission to the President (as it will tend to force unanimous ovations and such), which is clearly not the opinion of about half the public.  The engagement of millions during the last election was about making the equal branches of government work together for the benefit of the nation — not for Congress to capitulate and accommodate the Executive Branch as it went far adrift of Constitutionally granted powers. The American people want results that benefit the country in the end, but our history and tradition are solidly supportive of differing viewpoints working out that course, and separation of powers to ensure that course is aligned with our Constitution.  Squelching debate or differing opinions should not be the goal — allowing the public to see and understand the dissent in the clear light of day and informing the public’s choice should be the goal.

The Republicans should work for substance over style as they craft the budgets and laws during this session.  They should hold the various committee hearings, largely in the open, and show the American people the intent of the laws being drafted and the reasons for them.  They should call witnesses, both pro and con, who offer facts, not political theater of victimhood or feelings about what might be.  Where the facts are subject to interpretation, they should understand the risks of various alternatives, and strive to choose the option with the greatest chance of securing our liberty and prosperity.  They need to run the committee hearings as ‘a tight ship’ and get the facts needed to craft the bills and move on.  They need to allow dissenting opinions, and then reject them when the opinions call for action that is not based on Constitutional principles–and be unafraid to do so.

The Republicans should institute rules that properly treat the process of legislation as the serious task that it is (I think they’ve already accomplished this, but we need to ‘trust and verify’ that the rules are followed). No more bills that no one reads; no more 2,000+ page monstrosities that delve into every nook and cranny of people’s lives and freedoms; no more ramming legislation through in the dead of night; no more ‘no budgets’ before the end of the fiscal year; no more inserting language in bills to authorize pork barrel spending on things that were not identified in committee hearings.  They should operate under one simple premise: a bill is ready to hit the floor when there is nothing left to cut out of it, rather than there’s nothing left to add.

Finally, the substance that over 70 percent of the public wants to see is thoughtful and deep reductions in spending.  This is going to be hard; the media and various interest groups are going to come out of the woodwork to demonize and deflect the attempts to end programs and reduce funding.  The Republicans in Congress must simply steel their nerves and walk into the disaster that is the federal budget and attempt to salvage our future.   If they are consistent and fact-based, and they communicate continuously while they’re at it, we can and will support them. And that support must be vigorous, active and personal.

They will win in the end, because there is one simple fact:  there is no more money.  We either cut spending or collapse as a nation.  The Republicans need to expose any Democrats that are ‘deniers’ about the budget just as tenaciously as the Democrats  do battle with Republicans on global warming and other favorite causes.

When they find Democrats that are of like minds regarding liberty, prosperity and the Constitution, by all means they should encourage them to join in the effort and work together — but the Republicans must not allow themselves to be brow beaten into submitting to half measures in the name of bi-partisanship.  Working to be only $850B in debt instead of $1T isn’t what the country needs; negotiating over half steps to appear bi-partisan is unwanted.

In the end, the Republicans need to convey the message that they are fighting for the future of the nation. They need to wage a campaign (there goes that violent rhetoric again — deal with it)  of substantive actions that are meant to restore our liberty and prosperity, and not simply try to win style points for civility and bi-partisanship.

At the same time, those of us who desire and fight for limited government must be right behind the Congress in with ideas regarding how to address some very real problems without the help of the federal government.  We acknowledge that the homeless, the unemployed and the sick need help, but our message is always washed away by the media.  We need to confront that and demonstrate that we are doing things to assist people — and that we have even more ideas now.  Instead of ‘National Day of Service’ exercises to feel good for a day, we must show how people right now are making a difference every day — and help them establish the means to continue.

As Vassar Bushmills has written in an earlier post, this isn’t going to be easy for the 112th Congress. I believe they can pull it off if they go for substance over style, but they will need our help.  As President Bush said after 9/11 to the military leaders during his speech to the joint session of Congress, “Be Ready.”

The election of 2010 is behind us, and we have much to be thankful for by its results — but thousands of words written here and elsewhere show that the 2010 battle is but the start of a long campaign to restore our country.

The next battles are in ‘off year’ elections in the various states, mostly for local offices.  These races are important and serve as the on-ramp to the next significant battle in the campaign, the 2012 election cycle.  There are a number of things that we can all do in 2011 to accomplish two goals: continue the momentum and prepare for even greater success in 2012.

Read Up

Studying the whole range of local, state and federal issues in depth will prepare us to be better voters, advocates and volunteers for the campaigns of our choice.  Getting beyond the MSM treatment of topics, going deeper than Politifact and studying the sources of history, politics and economics is essential.

Write Up

After learning the deeper facts, express yourself!  I’ve learned a lot from ColdWarrior, LaborUnionReport, Vladimir, Moe Lane and all the other ‘usual suspects’ at RedState — and I’ve spread that knowledge through email links and informal discussions.

Save Up

Like it or not, politics takes money.  Start saving up now so that when candidates come along that make you resonate about issues, like Nikki Haley or Marco Rubio, you can actually do something to help.  Set some money aside to enable you to make a road trip to a rally — as I’m sure there will be several chances for those in the coming 2 years.  Set a budget and target the money so that it goes where you think is best.  The sooner you start saving, the more likely you’ll be successful.

Join Up

Cold Warrior has made this point relentlessly and effectively.  Just do it.  Get involved at the local level and help steer the Republicans toward the conservative, Constitutional viewpoint and away from ‘bi-partisan’ solutions that grow government and increase spending.

Shape Up

“Politics is war by other means” according to Clauswitz.  If this is a fight, then the troops need to be fit for combat.  Walking neighborhoods for candidates, attending rallies, going to town hall meetings and working late takes energy.  Being fit means being able to participate with energy and enthusiasm, which are critical to winning over skeptics and undecided voters.

Rest Up

Being in shape is critical, but being rested so that you can occasionally push the limits during voter drives, local rallies and other ‘surge’ sorts of activities.  Resting up also keeps your mind sharp, and you tend to be able to show grace and humor in the face of conflict with the humorless, dour lefties.

Drive Up

Take the time to go to a Tea Party rally or a Republican event at the state or regional level.  Drive to the next Red State gathering.  Drive up to your Representative or Senator’s local office and pay them a cordial viist — but let them know where you stand on the issues that are important to you.

Talk Up

Talk to your co-workers, neighbors, friends and family — engage them in the fight.  We need numbers!  There’s obviously a limit here, and you have to be discerning – no family gathering is worth ruining because your second cousin is an Obama supporter and won’t listen to ‘reason.’  Ditto at work — you can’t become ‘that person’ who gets avoided because of your relentless and strident discussions.  Talking up means doing a fair amount of listening as well — and using facts wherever possible to spoil the arguments that may arise.

Walk Up

When you see a candidate for office, approach them and be respectful; they need to be engaged and they are looking for an opportunity to convey their message to you; here’s  your chance to briefly have a shot at giving them yours.  Look what Joe the Plumber did for all of us by being reasonable and candid.  This goes for your local office holders as well.  I once found my Representative at a flight gate waiting to return home and found him to be responsive and polite — and he seemed to appreciate the positive feedback (he was doing well, and I let him know).

Call Up

When issues arise either locally, at the state or federal level, don’t be shy about calling the office holder’s office.  The Tea Party efforts to ‘melt the switchboards’ at the Capitol have an effect.  During the throes of the campaign, go ahead and volunteer for phone bank duty (although personally, I really find this annoying, there are some that are convinced through personal contact).

Hang Up

When the opposition calls, kindly tell the caller that you are not in favor of whatever they’re calling about and politely hang up.  The volunteer can’t or shouldn’t get in a debate with you, and doing so wastes time for both of you.  Better to politely end the call and reduce your stress level.  Save  your energy for actual discussions with others that can have an effect.

Congress seems to have a lot on their plate — literally.  The House recently passed a bill that EXPANDS the school lunch program to one that serves dinner, available in all 50 States.

The Bill is a result of the Ms. Obama’s efforts to end childhood obesity. Like all things with good intentions, this bill goes off the rails pretty quickly. One of the main targets of the Bill is to regulate school bake sales — apparently the occasional brownie or slice of pizza is now viewed with the same critical, nanny-state view as transfats and high fructose corn syrup.

Public health groups pushed for the language on fundraisers, which encourages the secretary of Agriculture to allow them only if they are infrequent. The language is broad enough that a president’s administration could even ban bake sales, but Secretary Tom Vilsack signaled in a letter to House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller, D-Calif., this week that he does not intend to do that. The USDA has a year to write rules that decide how frequent is infrequent.

Margo Wootan of the Center for Science in the Public Interest says the bill is aimed at curbing daily or weekly bake sales or pizza fundraisers that become a regular part of kids’ lunchtime routines. She says selling junk food can easily be substituted with nonfood fundraisers.

“These fundraisers are happening all the time,” Wootan said. “It’s a pizza sale one day, doughnuts the next… It’s endless. This is really about supporting parental choice. Most parents don’t want their kids to use their lunch money to buy junk food. They expect they’ll use their lunch money to buy a balanced school meal.”

The bill spends $4.5Billion to ensure that kids are eating a healthy diet.  The program is run by the Department of Agriculture, not the Department of Education– no chance of bureaucratic turf wars or bungling incompetence here, right?

So now we have disadvantaged children eating school breakfast, lunch and dinner, with the resulting length of time spent at school getting even longer….meaning more ‘late buses’ and other school costs.  Who will be the cafeteria monitors after the teacher’s union mandated ‘end of school hours’ release of teachers at 4PM?

But most serious of all, if the kids are eating dinner at school, that completely isolates them from the family dinner table. Aren’t we supposed to be encouraging parents to take an active role in their children’s lives and talk to them about sex, drugs, rock and roll, bullying and life?  And when will this happen if little Johnny and Suzy don’t get back from school until 5:30 or 6:00 PM, already fed?

This is a clear over-reach by the federal government, trying to leap frog right into our kitchens and dining rooms, ‘for the children…’  It won’t take long for the program to grow and grow to a point where it absorbs all students, so that scheduling can be simplified for the poor school administrators.

This is a classic example of out of control government, founded on ‘good intentions.’

We’re seeing the impact of the lack of leadership and management experience — and it isn’t good!

H/T PajamasMedia “Dismal Jobs Numbers Expose a Leaderless White House on Economic Policy” by Richard Pollock.

All through the 2008 Presidential Campaign, there were articles in the conservative press and blogs questioning the leadership and management experience of Senator Obama.  Many felt that his relatively light experience in actually performing the executive tasks — forming an organization, formulating decision making processes, recruiting a capable team — was sufficient cause for not electing him.

Turns out there was a whole lot of truth to that position.  Richard Pollock’s article focuses on the President’s economic team and the long list of departures of his ‘first team’ players, due to “exhaustion” according to Robert Gibbs.  So now we’re months deeper into the problem and we have no one to serve at the top of the President’s staff: bringing him accurate information and alternatives to act on.

This should be a cause for concern for everyone, and it is rapidly becoming more than just a political talking point — the country is in serious trouble and there is little being done to resolve the issue.

Pollock’s article paints a dire picture about how the President is going about replacing those who have left the administration (Romer, Orzag, Summers and a number of others):

No one is being sought who has any experience running a 21^st century corporation and who actually knows how to produce jobs.  This is what happens when you declare war on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and your closest business ally, the Business Roundtable, excoriates you as they did this summer, saying you have created an “increasingly hostile environment for investment and job creation.”

Time will tell if the White House is finally able to find some dedicated people to fill the void and serve the President and the nation.

We must learn from this experience if we hope to begin the long struggle back to freedom and prosperity through this election cycle and the next, and the next:  the individual that becomes the President is first and foremost an executive.  The President must be able to recruit, place and sustain a capable team that will have to work hard to bring the government back under control. The White House is a place that demands our best and brightest (see Keith Hennessy, for example), and they have to have the endurance to see the job through.  The President must be able to lead and inspire the staff to do that.

As we look at candidates in the upcoming election for President in 2012, we must put emphasis on leadership and executive ability.  Elections are all about making the best possible choice out of the candidates that arise — there are no perfect candidates, but some may be more ideal or optimum than others.  Previous experience counts for a lot; what they have accomplished in previous offices or in the private sector is very important.  What matters most though is character and ability — and the ability must be grounded in the ways and means to lead groups of people to successfully accomplish long term goals.

After reading this, I like Mike even more!

Representative Mike Pence delivered a speech at Hillsdale College on September 20, 2010, and the speech is reprinted in the October issue of their monthly magazine Imprimis. You really need to read the whole thing– it is a masterful speech and full of solid understanding of history and the Constitution.  And it is flat out eloquent and powerful.  Some excerpts:

What it [the nation] says–informed by its long history, impelled by the laws of nature and nature’s God — is that we as a people are not to be ruled and not to be commanded.  It says that the president should never forget this; that he has not risen above us, but is merely one of us, chosen by ballot, dismissed after his term, tasked not to transform and work his will upon us, but to bear the weight of decision and to carry out faithfully the design laid down in the Constitution in accordance with the Declaration of Independence.

Power is an instrument of fatal consequence. It is confined not more readily than quicksilver, and escapes good intentions as easily as air flows through mesh. Therefore, those who are entrusted with it must educate themselves in self-restraint.  A republic is about limitation, and for good reason, for we are mortal and our actions are imperfect.

The whole speech is remarkable.  His intent and purpose seem genuine and reminiscent of great thinkers of the past such as Washington and Jefferson, and the comparison to Reagan is unavoidable.

Representative Pence is to be congratulated on delivering this remarkable speech, and to be thanked for his efforts in the House to achieve the goals of Constitutional governance and national prosperity.

He deserves encouragement  and support as 2012 draws closer.

And Hillsdale deserves your support and encouragement as well, for all they do in educating students and the public about our great nation.

We’ve successfully completed the 2010 election cycle, and it seems that already we’re ankle deep in the process for 2012.  Before the tide comes in any higher, I’d like to offer an observation and a new way of looking at the Primaries.

I’ve been following politics for a long time — deep into the last millennium.  The quadrennial challenge of getting the nominations for the President have changed back and forth over the years, but I think that the changes wrought for the 2008 cycle were pretty well hammered up.  The spectacle of states wanting to be first and setting primary dates as early as December 2007;  the’penalizing’ of Florida and the other states that went against the Democrat and Republican Party wishes; the stacking of primaries into ‘Super Tuesday’ all made the process about as neat as a soup sandwich.   It also had the effect of leaving whole sections of the country out of the main debate and process of picking the winner.

I’d like to see that change, in a way that respects the recent upsurge in participation and spontaneity that the Tea Party brought to the process in 2010.  From the experience this year, I think that some of the axioms of past campaigns — that it takes years or months to raise enough money; that it takes years to build organizations; that we have to slog through a 2 year process to get the best candidates — can be put to the test and tossed out.

Here’s what I’d like to see:

1.  No candidate can declare candidacy for the Presidency before July 4, 2011.  That gives roughly 17 months until election day to wrap the whole process.  None of this “announcing that I’m thinking of possibly examining the notion of forming an exploratory committee” stuff either…stay off the stage until the season starts.  Do something of value to become noticed, instead of just talking about doing things.

2.  On July 4, 2011, the heads of the Republican and Democrat Parties meet in DC and conduct a lottery to fill the slots for Presidential Primaries or Conventions or Caucuses, as defined by state laws.  The lottery will distribute the 50 state selection/elections more or less equally across 12 Election Days, held on Tuesday, between the 3rd week in February (President’s Day week) and mid May (4 to 5 states a week).  By making these dates random, there is no advantage to having early front runners take up residence in the ‘early primary states’ (it didn’t work for Chris Dodd anyhow) or making early, repeated trips to Iowa and New Hampshire which represent about 1% of the total  population.  Deciding the lottery in the summer of the previous year should be sufficient time for the states to prepare for the primaries 7-10 months later.

3.  The party conventions are held in July and August, 2012 as traditionally done, and the campaign really gears up from Labor Day to the first Tuesday in November, 2012.

As for concerns about getting organizations and GOTV efforts built in time — maybe we should build those organizations more along the lines of the Tea Party (around issues like limited government and no bailouts) rather than personalities.  Maybe getting people to consider the issues and decide on the direction the country should be heading and then looking for the right person to execute that direction is a better way than selecting our leader based on an 8×10 glossy or teleprompter fed version of their thinking, only to find out they have either no plan for governing, or the wrong plan.

I really think that we have done damage to our government by looking for ‘rock stars’ and brilliant orators at the expense of intelligent, action oriented executive type people that we actually need to run things after the election is over.  We’re living through the ‘rock star’ era now, and it hasn’t been pretty.  It’s time to try something else.